Love, Sex, Romance in the Wastes + Kickstarter

an interview with SpicyTuna, and a Cloud Empress storage solution!

Back on Kickstarter

I’m excited to announce that Cloud Empress will return to Kickstarter on April 2nd, with the Cloud Empress: Life and Death campaign.

Moving to Kickstarter, I’m excited to announce that every physical pledge will include a Lowland Wastes tuck box. During the last campaign, you requested a Cloud Empress storage solution. I try to make all worlds x watt products “beautifully useful.” I’ve spent the last year thinking about ways to store Cloud Empress and landed on the tuck box solution. The tuck box can be mailed flat to keep the project within a reasonable budget, lower shipping costs, avoid expensive assembly, and we can print the boxes in America. The tuck box will be designed to fit all previous Cloud Empress content in a form fit for your shelf. It should be about the size of a software box (if folks still remember those).

What do you think of the tuck box?

Moving From Backerkit to Kickstarter

Wait, a Cloud Empress: Life and Death campaign announcement sounds familiar? Last month I announced Cloud Empress: Life & Death would be launching on Backerkit. We’re moving the campaign back to Kickstarter. What’s changed?

Using Backerkit’s crowdfunding analytics and speaking with a Backerkit staff member, all indications said the next Cloud Empress campaign would make significantly less than the 2023 campaign. Why would the campaign make less money and why is that a problem? 

Backerkit Crowdfunding is a new and exciting platform (I see a ton of potential both in creating positive communities and financial success there), but not many people have Backerkit accounts yet. I’m told there is a significant friction point when creating a Backerkit account (which is required to pledge). I don’t fully understand why the signup process loses so many folks, but the sign-up step means the number of pre-campaign followers who pledge on the first day is much lower compared to Kickstarter - leading to much lower first-day funding totals. In numbers, Backerkit’s success calculator indicated I would need about 1600 pre-followers to reach a goal of $7500 — for context, the first campaign had about 700 pre-followers. On closer expectation, I realized most financially successful campaigns on Backerkit right now are from established publishers with large pre-existing audiences (ten to twenty times larger than my following). 

I’m not in the ttrpg business to make money. At first, I was willing to take a big risk on Backerkit because I’m excited by the platform and have some issues with Kickstarter. Money isn’t everything, but with the success of the first campaign I was able to:

• Expand Cloud Empress’ scope through stretch goals and commission more artwork

• Pay myself a salary of about $15-20 USD per hour for my work

• Writers were paid royalties based on copies sold

• Give bonuses to the lead art team

• Create the Cloud Empress Creators Grant, which funded $1000 worth of new Cloud Empress projects from indie ttrpg creators

• Fund the creation of the next Cloud Empress: Life & Death books

There’s no certainty launching on Kickstarter will be successful either, but given the new information I had access to, it’s more likely. Ultimately, what helped me make my decision was the voices of the Cloud Empress Discord (join here) and my community of Mothership Creators in the 3rd Sector Discord. Both groups advocated for meeting my financial needs first so I could continue to create games in the long run. They also suggested experimenting with new crowdfunding platforms using smaller projects with less risk.

worlds x watt Roadmap

Cloud Empress Discord members encouraged me to share my overall publisher roadmap. I look up to board game publishers Leder Games, Possum Creek Games, Chip Theory Games, and WhirlyGig Games for visions of what long-term success might look like (can you tell I like Cole Wehrle’s work?). These publishers make great games without exploiting crowdfunding FOMO, but creating my ideal crowdfunding experience requires a certain level of stable financial support I hope to build over the next few years. Here are some goals for my future crowdfunding campaigns:

1. Reduce overall crowdfunding fulfillment timeline (ongoing)

2. Remove early bird bonuses (in progress, April 2024)

3. Reduce physical stretch goals, including more game content in beginning pledges to reduce fulfillment burnout (in progress, April 2024)

4. Move US crowdfunding fulfillment and warehousing to a trusted partner (in progress, 2024)

5. Launch 2 campaigns per year (in-progress, 2024/2025)

6. Launch a second setting, likely an Ironsworn hack/setting (in-progress, 2024/2025)

7. Diversify crowdfunding platforms moving select campaigns to Backerkit or Gamefound (?2025/2026?)

Questions about any of these goals? Feel free to throw them in the comments. Okay, that’s enough business talk for one day!

Love, Sex & Romance in the Lowland Wastes

Download the PDF version of the monthly expansion here.

Summer travelers couple and uncouple casually. Momentary flings prove useful for finding winter partners. Ample Farmerling experience advises against bedding down with members of one’s own traveling party – too many complications and likely lover quarrels during dangerous times. In contrast, village pass-throughs and the intersection of two traveling parties frequently cause less complicated sexual celebrations. Still, the heart rarely ignores its wishes. Just as many long-loves start shoulder-to-shoulder traveling summer trails. Just as many long-loves take to the road together, meeting the world with interlocked fingers and synchronized hearts.

It’s true too that distance makes love’s roots dig deeper. Couriers play an essential role in sparking fledgling romance and sustaining decades-long affairs. Among the usual fare, lonely and adventurous Farmerlings commonly send sensuous letters with blank addresses. They trust Couriers to carry their letters on to the right reader one village over or half the world away. In this way, some Couriers become famed matchmakers as well as cherished provisioners.

1d10 Signs of Flirting

1-2 Imitating the gentle coos of a packsquab or loud whistling

3-4 First sip from a canteen, gourd, wine bottle, chalk smoke, or pipe

5-6 A spin around the campfire, the faster the better

7 An offer to temporarily swap tools of violence or clothing for the fun of it

8 Arm and leg wrestling

9 Wagering kisses over cards, dice, and shrimpmice races

10 A handmade scarf, neckerchief, or pocket square made in the giver’s color

Greenhorns Interview

If you haven’t seen Greenhorns, Spicy Tuna’s new RPG system full of strange cosmic adventures, you still have a week to back it on Kickstarter. I invited Greenhorns creator, Marco, to talk about the project’s strange inspirations and how to successfully grow as a ttrpg publisher.

When I think about the word “Greenhorn,” my mind goes to cowboys, but you’ve brought the name to a gonzo outer space setting. At the same time, Greenhorns seems to fit the uncanny odd tone of what you’ve created. As someone who’s always on the lookout for a catchy & unique name for my ttrpg projects, tell me about where the name Greenhorns came from.

It’s funny because I think of The Deadliest Catch show when I think of greenhorns. The term meaning a first-year fishermen. It’s a term I thought of as I was thinking about how baked in the lethality of the game should be. Ultimately, players are greenhorns because senior planet builders are a rarity. It’s the most dangerous job in the universe, creating planets, but they do it because the whole population believes they were called to do so.

In the section introducing The Creatora Machinika, the god-like creation machine that the crew guides on these planet creation missions, the game tells the reader that The Great Machine has chosen many peoples. But, in their pursuit to act as gods they always fall to their hubris. It’s been an amazing framework to play in and players really lean into this responsibility in interesting ways.

Greenhorns has a wonderful cosmic theme that reminds me of my love for Galactus and his planet-devouring heralds – here the team is creating planets though. How did the planet-creating mission structure develop?

Planet creation missions started as classic dungeon delving with an emphasis on strange and surprising encounters in most chambers (rooms). While a planet is being created, a tunnel system is bored into the planet and beckons the crew and The Great Machine inside of it so the planet may be stabilized. The crew interacts with anomalies from many timeframes of the planet’s existence, from ancient beasts to high-tech futuristic beings.

Planet layers are modular and the Rocketeer (GM) fills each chamber before the game starts. A single map uses about 35-40% of the available Threats, !!Bosses!!, Snags, and NPCs options for each planet layer. This way the Shimmering layer the crew creates will be significantly different than the next time they create the same layer. This idea was influenced by and altered from the Down We Go and the Together We Go dungeon framework written by Markus Luderum and developed by Tony Vasinda.

The crew's job is to find a way to stabilize the planet layer so the creation process can be finalized. They do this by discovering the wants of NPCs and the !!Boss!! and interacting with them to find a way to bring about enough peace for the planet to rest. Alternatively, and often more difficult, the players may traverse the entire map which allows The Great Machine to stabilize the layer. Players can go in gung ho guns blazing or use narrative elements to negotiate, form alliances, and make tactical maneuvers to complete their mission.

There seems to be some ‘out there’ creative character classes in the book. Can you highlight one for us with some thoughts about why the class was added to the roster of available options? 

I’m going to highlight the Force Flyer, which is a class in the core book outside of the 4 core classes available in the Quickstart.

Force Flyer is a mix between a few characters from comics: The Flash, Slingshot/Yo-yo, and Jean Gray. They are always Speedy and have Skills such as Dashing Ultra-Strike, Command Movement, and Mega-Vac Cyclone.

Force Flyer can scout chambers and possesses skills that can change the landscape of combat, including rearranging objects, propelling threats out of range, and restraining a threat or !!Boss!! so it is easier for allies to pile on damage. The class is somewhere in between support and a versatile damage dealer.

I’m really happy with how the character classes formed! My main goal was for classes to feel unique, both in and out of combat. This was especially important when it comes to narrative applications as narrative tools merging with classic adventure-style gaming is a major emphasis of the game (another Together We Go element). 

You’ve been publishing several Mothership titles like Constant Downpour, Outsourced, Knights of Lazarus as well as other projects. I admire your ability to launch a steady stream of crowdfunding releases. How do you think about your publishing pipeline? What advice would you give to someone looking to jump from launching a single crowdfunding campaign a year to two or more (erm… asking for a friend)?

Thank you for the kind words. My publishing pipeline is something I’m finally figuring out a bit. Through last year, I was committing to too many simultaneous projects that required deadlines from myself, and between having our fourth child and losing out from weeks of sickness, I got slammed and torturously behind on a number of them.

I think my biggest advice is to track what you are efficient at and have some level of understanding of your average bandwidth. Always work with a buffer of time when you are the bottleneck for a project or what collaborators need from you. A sacrifice I’m learning to make is to hire out some parts I’m extremely slow at even though I may love them. Not all the time of course, but enough that it lowers the overall stress of the calendar year knowing I’ll be able to successfully ship what I want to ship this year.

There needs to be some level of working on multiple projects so you are making progress towards multiple release dates, but it’s more important to keep balance and not bite off more than you can chew. This is different for everyone based on how your creative output works. I’m finding two projects with deadlines at least a few months apart is working great for me. Plus one or two projects I can chip away at for an hour at a time every few days when my creative brain is stalled on the other projects can be a good juicer for me.

The other mistake I have made is committing to too many large projects in a row (4 100+ page hardcovers in 2 years + zines alongside). So the advice I’m giving myself is similar to above, but not to shy away from smaller releases. Jarrett from Space Penguin Ink has shared thoughts on The Weekly Scroll, that tabletop collections can often come together later in larger editions. Examples from Games Omnivorous are Vaults of Vaarn which collects Leo Hunt’s zines in a hardcover and The Haunted Almanac, which is a massive collection of small games and adventures by Nate Treme. Both are extremely beautiful hardcovers with fresh designs from their original releases. Knave and the Mothership box set are other examples of this that did it in a different way.

In 2024, after our next two hardcovers (which are mostly done!!), I will be committing to introducing new games and modules in smaller pieces for the most part. We will still have larger projects launch every year, but mixing in smaller releases is a surefire way to lower stress while maintaining the quality of each of our releases (at least for us).

Thanks so much for your time Marco! You can find more of Spicytuna’s work at spicytunarpg.com or Marco’s consistently excellent newsletter The Guac.

What I’m Reading & Playing

Apologies, forgot this section last month!

• Songbirds 3E (back now on Kickstarter)

• Pathologic 2 by Ice-Pick Lodge

• From Hell by Alan Moore

• Voidfall by Nigel Buckle and David Turczi

That’s it for this month! Questions or comments? Reply below!